


Having A Bad Day

by DGCatAniSiri



Series: James Vega Romance [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 14:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What’s goin’ on? Joker said something about mercs attacking, and... a fish tank?”</p>
<p>“It’s a long story.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Having A Bad Day

James was hitting up the Silversun Strip’s simulator when he got Joker’s call – mercs had shown up and crashed a meeting with Shepard. Shepard had gotten knocked through a fish tank (James hadn’t really gotten that, had they been at a restaurant or an aquarium, but it was far from the point), and Joker had lost sight of him.

It had been maybe a week since he had Shepard had agreed to start a relationship. That same week had seen them retaking the quarian homeworld, end a war between the quarians and geth peacefully, and take out a second Reaper destroyer. They’d earned the shore leave that Hackett had called for. And now they had a crisis. Typical.

Canceling out of the simulation, he got on his way – fortunately, for active duty officers, Armax Arena allowed them to use their own armor and weapons, just with safety dampeners attached to the heat sinks – trying to call Shepard on his omni-tool.

“Shepard. Shepard! You there?”

“James?” Shepard sounded pained, like... Well, like he’d fallen through a fish tank and had immediately gotten back onto his feet because of a bunch of mercs were shooting at him. 

Still, hearing his voice was a relief – alive meant he was still kicking. “I’m here, loco,” James said, smiling. “Where are you, what’s goin’ on? Joker said something about mercs attacking, and... a fish tank?” Still confusing.

He heard Shepard groan, could picture him shake his head, trying to clear it, since he was probably still seeing stars after that fall. “It’s a long story.”

“You’re gonna tell me all about it,” James swore, already zeroing in on Shepard’s signal. He got a general idea of the area Shepard was, though the omni-tool couldn’t pin him down much further than that. He wasn’t far, a quick run could get him near Shepard. He considered calling on a taxi to cross the distance, just for the added protection for when he caught up to Shepard – after all, James had the added protection of armor, while Shepard didn’t have the luxury of that extra protection, and there were mercs shooting at him. “I’ll be there soon, loco.”

“Excuse me, who is this?” An unfamiliar female voice cut into the comm channel. “You’re on an unsecured channel, and you’re putting COMMANDER. SHEPARD’S. Life in danger!” 

James looked to the omni-tool in irritation – whoever this was seemed to have no idea who either of them were, James for Shepard’s crew (even without their decision to start a relationship as public knowledge), or Shepard for someone whose life was in danger in six different ways before breakfast. “Who am I? Who are YOU?” he asked, some choice words in mind if he didn’t like the answer.

“Easy everyone. James, did Joker mention Staff Analyst Brooks? That’s her. Play nice.” Shepard’s words were more for him than Brooks.

Opting to focus on the pushy analyst later, James tried to see if he could get a ping from Shepard’s own omni-tool and narrow his location down further. Tech might not be his best subject, but he’d learned a few tricks. “Right. Look, I’m already on my way, sent Joker to let the others know. Anything else I can pass on?” He figured that if he could tell Joker anything about these mercs, he could pass it on to EDI or Liara.

“They have guns and don’t like me,” was Shepard’s summation. James could hear a few pings of bullets, followed by a couple of short cracks too close to be anything but Shepard shooting back, presumably having taken a gun from one of the mercs, since the pops of gunfire didn’t sound like Shepard’s trusty Mattock.

“Helpful, loco,” James said with a disgusted sigh. _Least he’s armed, though._ Give Shepard a gun, a heat sink, plus his biotics, he knew Shepard could kick the asses of this whole merc band on his own without too much trouble. _Still better double time it._

“Commander, you really shouldn’t be on this commline,” came Brooks’ voice again. “It’s not secure.” James had some words he could offer on that subject, but for the time being, he would concede that the staff analyst had a point. If the mercs were listening in, they’d know that Shepard had backup coming for him, they’d send more of their people to chase him down. Shepard might be good, even without his armor or his weapons, but superior numbers would do in even the best fighters.

He kept quiet, though his line to Shepard was open in case of trouble on his part. He listened as Shepard told Brooks he was heading for a carport, and adjusted his course accordingly. He saw some C-Sec shuttles flying in, but opted against bringing them in to this – mercs infiltrating the Citadel, being able to walk into a restaurant on the Silversun Strip despite the various security checkpoints that had been put in place since the war had started and Cerberus’s attempted coup? They had to have had inside help on this one.

Stealth may not have been his favored tactic, but James did know how to make his way to a location while keeping his presence as low key as possible. It helped that these mercs seemed more focused on tracking down Shepard at the moment than on any possible backup. He found his way into the carport, and saw that there were a couple of the mercs, standing around. 

He decided that now was as good a time as any to get some payback on Shepard’s behalf. He fired off a headshot at one of them. The other managed to react quickly, rolling away. To James’s surprise, the merc then threw himself at James. His hand-to-hand skills kicked and he managed to toss the merc aside in a heap of limbs. If the merc was still conscious, he wisely stayed down.

It was then that James saw that Shepard had entered the carport, pointing what James would only describe as a pea shooter at where the mercs had been standing. He smirked at him. “Seems like you’re having a bad day, loco.”

Shepard let out a pained chuckle. “Yeah, you could say that.” He seemed to be walking off a bit of a limp, and his clothes, an N7 leather jacket and jeans, were still drenched from the fall through the fish tank.

“Well, you can tell me all about it when we get outta here. Landing pad’s over there,” he said with a jerk of his head. “But you know, it’s probably locked up tight, given the C-Sec lockdown.”

“Great. Let’s find the control panel then,” Shepard groaned, moving forward, and giving James a view of his backside. 

“Nice outfit...” James murmured. Realizing he’d said that out loud, he cleared his throat. “Right. Control panel.” He looked around trying to spot it. “So... what was this about falling through a fish tank?”

“We can talk about it later.”

“Just sayin’, not exactly what I think of as the highlight for your memoirs or something,” James teased.

“I said LATER,” Shepard said, and James could tell that he probably shouldn’t push further on this. He followed as Shepard approached a locked door.

As Shepard examined the door, James caught sight of something moving through the big window, clearly an office space looking out into the showroom. James looked back to see Shepard preparing a biotic push. 

He moved over and put a hand on Shepard’s arm. “Hey, maybe there’s a way we can do this without causing more property damage?” Off Shepard’s look, he rapped on the window. “Hey, we’d like an exit, please.”

There was a hiss as the doors opened, then a second one preceding the response on the other side of the window. “Please leave!” The voice sounded volus, explaining the second hiss.

“Gracias,” James nodded to the terrified worker. Let it never be said that Maria Vega hadn’t raised a gentleman.

Shepard cleared his throat rather sheepishly. “Well, I could’ve done that,” he said. James chuckled, opting this time not to say anything. They headed for the door and waited as a shuttle flying C-Sec colors drew close. James almost sighed in relief. 

Then the shuttle hatch lifted, revealing another platoon of the mercs. And this group had a rapid fire machine gun in hand. 

“Shit...” James said, drawing the word out as he and Shepard, mercifully, reacted on instinct, ducking to cover. James glanced to Shepard, a silent request for ideas. 

However, if there were any plan in Shepard’s mind on the subject, the matter went out of their hands as a flash of seven foot of reptilian-like hide and red battle armor dropped down from the higher levels and tore through the mercs in the shuttle. With the gunfire halted, James looked to Shepard, who was already pulling himself up and looking to the krogan who’d dropped out of the sky.

“Wrex! What are you doing here?” Not that either of them would look a gift krogan in the mouth, but the de facto leader of the krogan wasn’t someone they’d expect to see dropping out of the sky and saving their sorry asses. There could be a few lines between those dots.

Wrex chuckled as he approached the two of them. “Eh, I was here to get the Council to get off their asses on the matter of reparations.” A thousand years of enforced sterility probably carried a high price tag, James figured. “Heard there was something going on down here, figured it’d be more fun than politics. Especially since I figured you’d be here, Shepard.”

Shepard grinned, reminding James why he called the other man ‘Loco.’ “Well, you’re not wrong.” He then switched back to business mode. “Joker, the shuttle was filled with mercs. We need another exit.” James could hear rapidly approaching bootsteps and gripped his gun a little tighter – more mercs meant more fighting, and Shepard still didn’t have more than his wits and a pea-shooter-

That was when James realized that Shepard had picked up the machine gun that the mercs had been holding. 

James wasn’t sure if he was more afraid or turned on by the look in Shepard’s eye.

***

What went on after they escaped the car lot resulted in the wildest day James could remember in this whole damn war. That was really the only description he could give for the shit they’d been through. A black tie event led to a raid on the Citadel Council’s archives, which had revealed Cerberus had grown a clone of Shepard back when they’d brought him back, and said clone had been working with Brooks, who was former Cerberus herself, and together they’d tried to make off with the Normandy. He couldn’t make this shit up. 

As they began giving their statements to C-Sec, explaining Normandy’s breach of protocol and the discharging of her weapons, along with some unanswered questions regarding a break in at the Citadel Archives that everyone swore up and down that they had no idea what they were talking about. If it weren’t for Commander Bailey, who understood the concept of ‘answers raising too many questions’ and ‘I don’t have the time to deal with the ensuing paperwork,’ stepping in and saying they could go, they’d probably have spent the rest of the war dealing with all the red tape. 

Having been released, Shepard had immediately gone back to his swanky new apartment, finally able to have a chance to enjoy it and relax. While James didn’t particularly want to intrude on that, he did feel the need to swing by, see how he was coping. It was a lot to take in, given everything.

Glyph admitted him, revealing Shepard, sitting on the couch, a six pack in front of him. It had been that kind of day. Unsure of what was being asked of him, or what he was supposed to do anyway, he looked to Shepard in askance.

Shepard motioned to the beer in front of him, and James got the message – ‘no talking, just be here.’ So he sat down next to Shepard, leaving a gentle but respectful distance between them. James would give Shepard what he wanted. He definitely didn’t want to push.

They sat in silence for an hour, before Shepard leaned against James, seeming to fall asleep. James would have gotten up, gotten him a blanket or something, but he figured the movement might wake Shepard, and he didn’t want to do that. It was hard enough for Shepard to get to sleep in the first place, let alone stay that way.

So he got himself as comfortable as he could manage and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he was asleep as well.


End file.
